[RFE] Make high and gray elves differ more
issueid=1482 12-18-2012 10:41 AM
Junior Member
Number of reported issues by manedhel: 5
[RFE] Make high and gray elves differ more
Make high elves more interesting to play

For now, there is something interesting in playing all the races. The only exception is high elf - they are almost the same as gray elves, but a bit weaker. The same skill set, very similar starting stats, the same very high age range - all this makes player choose gray elf in almost all the cases.

I think high elf should be made more different than their cousins by adding a skill or two (maybe alertness, which would make then really a good gray elven wizard alternative) or by making starting stats difference between them and gray elves bigger.
Issue Details
Issue Number 1482
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 4
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 8
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 9
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 7
Votes against this feature 3
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




12-18-2012 07:06 PM
Ancient Member
I would suggest +1 St and -1 Ma for high elves, to make them more of a fighter elf. Also remove the bonus to learning bows and the Sun's Messenger crowning gift for grey elves. High elves are the archers, greys are the casters.

12-18-2012 07:17 PM
Senior Member
Just give them archery.

12-18-2012 07:34 PM
Ancient Member
Definitely not Alertness. Mist elves and dark elves already have that skill, so it doesn't really fix the overlap problems. I like the idea of giving them Archery instead of Dodge. Adjusting the attribute distribution slightly would not be out of line either.

12-18-2012 07:46 PM
Junior Member
I didn't think about it that way. Indeed, archery is much better idea that Alertness. Also, +1dx, -1Ma maybe comparing to GE? (or even +2/-2)

12-18-2012 07:49 PM
Senior Member
There can also be some racial archery talent.

12-18-2012 08:33 PM
Ancient Member
HE already have higher Dx and lower Ma than GE, to my knowledge.

12-18-2012 09:38 PM
Junior Member
noone said they were the same. They are just too similar and the goal of this topic is to discuss whether or not pronounce the difference more.

12-18-2012 09:40 PM
Ancient Member
That was a response to your most recent post.....
Quote Originally Posted by manedhel
I didn't think about it that way. Indeed, archery is much better idea that Alertness. Also, +1dx, -1Ma maybe comparing to GE? (or even +2/-2)

12-18-2012 10:00 PM
Junior Member
oops, i meant compared to what is it now, not gray elves, ofc ;)

12-19-2012 01:00 AM
Ancient Member
giving them archery and perhaps woodcraft by default would work for me.

I see them as the more combat elves.

dark elves can do anything but they have bad alignment.

12-19-2012 02:36 AM
Ancient Member
You know, we've already played them like that for ages - High elves for fighting, gray elves for casting. We don't need any change if that's to be the only distinguishing factor we want them to have, and I don't think judging by lore that there are much in the way of distingushing factors. There's nothing in the lore that suggests gray elves don't have a similar talent in using bows as high elves do, or that high elves are significantly more inept at spellcasting. I think Thomas' decision to give them essentially the same skillset (it's not like he just copypasted the high elf skillset into the gray elf section because he was lazy) was made with the consideration in mind that they are close cousins with very similar cultures, talents and fighting styles. Making the skillsets distinct also means changing the lore - and if the lore is to be changed, there's a thousand directions in which it could go, and they're all up to Thomas to think about. If we go by the lore as it is right now, I don't think it supports more than a minor difference between the two races - and that's what we already have.

That said; Archery isn't a high impact skill, except on Archers, but they all have it anyway. I think taking away Dodge in trade for it would achieve quite the opposite effect, since Dodge is actually a valuable skill for characters who enter melee combat. It would be fairly weird to take it away from the designated "Combat Elves". Since Archery doesn't have a very significant effect, it could be traded for the racial training in Literacy. High elves have high Learning and would still be very likely to start with it, but it would make for illiterate high elven barbarians and beastfighters and an overall worse performance on hopeful spellcasters who don't start with high Literacy. That would somewhat emphasize the "Martial - Spellcasting" divide without potentially going overboard on it. I think.

12-19-2012 06:08 AM
Ancient Member
I see nothing wrong with simply giving them archery on top of their current skillset.

High elves suffer a little from middle child syndrome at the moment. If you want a caster then you'd likely prefer the more extreme grey elves, and if you want a warrior then there are many better choices. The only things they get chosen for predominantly at the moment are archers. (Also rangers, paladins, priests, but less so than archers.) Giving them the archery skill wouldn't make them any more attractive as archers, but it would add to their appeal for other fightery classes that you want to use missiles with as well. All this without impacting on the popularity of grey elves.

12-19-2012 07:52 AM
Senior Member
I always thought the main difference in the elf suite was supposed to be alignment. Play High if you want a L character, Grey if you want a N character, dark if you want a C character and to get screwed in shops. :-)

12-19-2012 07:52 AM
Senior Member
I've always thought it interesting that in ADOM High/Grey Elves are switched from Tokien's definition, where the Grey Elves (like Legolas) are more archery/woods and nature centered and the High Elves (Galadriel, Elrond, Arwen) are more magical. (and also far, far older)

But I agree, why not give High Elves Archery, as well as maybe fletchery and woodcraft? Also, lower their Ma dramatically and raise Dx. St and To are fine where they are... they're supposed to be frailer than humans, after all.

12-19-2012 08:06 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Dogbreath
I've always thought it interesting that in ADOM High/Grey Elves are switched from Tokien's definition, where the Grey Elves (like Legolas) are more archery/woods and nature centered and the High Elves (Galadriel, Elrond, Arwen) are more magical.
This is because ADOM uses D&D lore rather than Tolkien lore (including god names and such). I think D&D deliberately makes things slightly different to prevent plagiarism attacks - they got in trouble using things like ents early on (later changed to treants to avoid a lawsuit).

12-19-2012 09:20 AM
Senior Member
I felt the same way regarding High vs Grey Elves relative to Tolkien - I always felt that High Elves should be the more magical ones.

Anyway, looking at the stat distribution differences according to the Guidebook, you find that, relative to Grey Elves, High Elves have...

Wi-1, Dx+1, To+1, Ch+2, Ap-4, Ma-2

For a net difference of -3.

Differentiating by saying "one is more of an archer race" doesn't make too much sense to me. So here's my idea...

Give High Elves extra Learning. If it had Le+2 relative to Grey Elves, it would effectively help to counterbalance their relative loss of Mana and Willpower. But more importantly, it would increase the likelihood of more skill increases per level up, thereby giving a distinct difference between the two - one does magic more easily, but the other gets more skill increases. I'd imagine the Learning and Willpower asymmetry would probably mean that castings would be similar (learned castings from reading a spellbook depends on both, right?)

12-19-2012 10:05 AM
Ancient Member
Changing Le would have opposite of intended effect. There is a reason that while DE have highest base Ma, they are "never" chosen for caster--their Le sucks. If you give HE +Le, it will be universally chosen over GE for caster-build (Ma is easily trained and there is functionally no difference). Since HE starts L, they are free to easily choose any alignment they wish (dropping alignment to highly desirable N is matter of slaughtering a goodwife, sometimes two on the outskirts of Terinyo), giving them even more flexibility.

12-19-2012 10:11 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by SirTheta
Changing Le would have opposite of intended effect. There is a reason that while DE have highest base Ma, they are "never" chosen for caster--their Le sucks. If you give HE +Le, it will be universally chosen over GE for caster-build (Ma is easily trained and there is functionally no difference). Since HE starts L, they are free to easily choose any alignment they wish (dropping alignment to highly desirable N is matter of slaughtering a goodwife, sometimes two on the outskirts of Terinyo), giving them even more flexibility.
Well then, how about doing it more directly, and give High Elves an extra skill increase, say every second level?

12-19-2012 12:51 PM
Ancient Member
You'd give them an extra skill increase not only over Gray Elves, but over everyone else as well. Aielyn's calculation crucially misses that a lot of the grey elven stat advantage is in the very useless Appearance stat. Granted, Charisma isn't much better, so the "actual" difference is -1. If you play a fighting class, Mana doesn't matter, and it's +1.

Giving High Elves Archery with no downside will simply result in people using High Elves over Gray Elves for everything ever. Wizards like slaying ammo, too, after all, and with HP casting nerfed they have more use for missiles than before. High elven wizards are already barely weaker than gray elven wizards; it's because they are so similar that they're already used in the manner in which this RFE intends them to be used.

I've played tons of high elven fighter types; they have their own style compared to the "strong" fighting races such as orcs, dwarves, drakelings or trolls. I can't agree with the "middle child syndrome" image that Grey forms at all. If anything, I honestly think I've played more high elves than gray elves overall, and certainly a much greater variety of classes with a high elf rather than a gray elf, because there are only like five dedicated spellcasting classes, and for everything else high elf is the better elf. If anything, the "middle child syndrome" would be induced by the addition of mist elves (only it turns out gray elves are safe because mist elves are currently only really good at dying).

I want to stress that there's probably a good reason, from a lore perspective, that High Elves and Gray Elves share so many similarities. If there are to be significant differences between the two in talents or culture, it's up to Thomas to tell us what they are. Anything we're going to come up with is basically arbitrary at this point. After all, Gray Elves and High Elves both get Sun's Messenger and are divided by one point of Dx - on what basis do we presume that High Elves are significantly more talented at using bows?

12-19-2012 07:28 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by SirTheta
they are "never" chosen for caster
I had no problems with spells learning while playing DE priests and druids (which I play quite frequently). Le is only important if you want to make a caster of archer or paladin. And by that time you should already have a way to increase it.
Quote Originally Posted by Silfir
- on what basis do we presume that High Elves are significantly more talented at using bows?
Their archers get long bows, while gray get short ones^^

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